The SoulNecklace Stories

by R. L. Stedman

The pain gripped me and I groaned, and then there was only the pain and me, locked in an unending, relentless dance.

  “Dana!” my mother said sharply, but I couldn’t turn to her, couldn’t move, because to move would make it worse, to provide it with material on which to work and the only way to cope with this agony was to pretend I wasn’t there, that this creature that screamed and writhed was not me.

  “Dana!” She shook my shoulder. “Come back.”

  Nurse gasped. “She’s bleeding! Ma’am, help me!”

  Why is she so afraid, I thought muzzily. Hasn’t she seen blood before? But before I could say anything the pain seized me; there was nothing but the burning and the flame.

  Another dream. The ferryman stood, waist deep in water, carrying a sleeping child. Her eyelids, soft as petals, were tightly closed. He touched a finger to the girl’s cheek.

  “You understand, don’t you? We had to keep her safe.”

  Beside the pond a flat-topped rock formed an excellent seat. Sitting down, I reached out my arms. “May I hold her?” I ached to hold her close. Strange, to feel so maternal.

  He passed her carefully to me and I settled the sleeping infant in my lap. Her eyelids flicked open; golden eyes gazed into mine. She stirred and smiled.

  “She likes you.”

  I rested my face against the baby’s head. “Good.”

  “Be careful,” he warned.

  “Why? She won’t hurt me.”

  The infant struggled from my grasp as though wanting to get down, so I set her carefully on the rock floor. Her face was changing, lengthening, and her limbs straightened. She got to her feet, now a toddler, then a child. Then, as we watched, she grew: changing from child to girl, from girl to adult, and from adult to …

  “You had something of enormous power,” I called, above the roaring. “But you kept it prisoner?”

  He shook his head no, no, no. “We kept her safe.”

  A flash of white light lit the cavern. The light grew and grew until it was too bright to see. Shadows stood in stark relief. The air burned; it hurt to breathe. The babe, now adult, stood beside me.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  She smiled sadly. “Lost.” Her voice was like a choir: multihued, multi-toned and glorious. “I am lost.”

  “And you want to go home?”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  “I had a friend,” I said sadly. “She returned home. I miss her.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes seemed old, old as the mountains. “We miss those we love.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name? I appear as a baby, you call me infant. I look older; my name is ‘child’. I am on the water; you see me as foam.”

  “You can change your shape?”

  “And you cannot?”

  I shook my head, of course not, and then, remembering the long battle with the Kamaye, I stopped.

  “You can, of course,” she said. “But you are not yet comfortable doing so. You feel like a human female, and so that is the shape you take. Me, I feel like nothing; I feel like everything. And I can take any shape I wish.”

  “How do I send you home?”

  “In this world, I must die, if I am to live.”

  “That makes little sense.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “But … You want me to kill you?”

  She nodded and inside I felt the Guardians stir.

  “I cannot do that.”

  “Why not? I smell death on you. You have killed before.”

  “That’s different,” I said sharply.

  “A death is a death.”

  I thought of the men I had killed. They had wanted to kill me, and so I had dispatched them first. Self-defense, that’s what it had been. “Not all deaths are the same.”

  “Tell that to the one who dies.”

  And to that, of course, there was no answer.

  Then the pain took me, and I disappeared.

  After a time, I began to hear again.

  “Where’s that doctor?” Mother’s voice.

  “On his way.” Nurse said. “Some fool of a villager sliced his hand open with an axe. Can’t afford to lose Lady Dana, maid says to him, and he nods and says the ‘villager can’t afford to do without his hand neither.’ ‘But this is urgent,’ maid says. ‘Tell that nurse, she’s managed more births than ever I have.’” Nurse sniffed. “This ain’t no birth. This is a miscarriage.”

  “You mean, Dana’s …”

  “Too early, that’s for certain,” said Nurse. “Why, she’d barely begun to show. And me, like a blind old fool, didn’t even realize.”

  Mother said nothing, but I heard her panting breaths.

  “Now, lady,” Nurse said sharply. “Time enough to show you’re shocked when this is over.”

  “She’s not going to die.” Mother seemed to be sobbing. “Is she?”

  “Not if I’ve got aught to do with it.” Nurse’s voice was grim.

  Figures came and went by my bedside; some were real, some illusory. It grew hard to tell the difference.

  “Come!” Sergeant Ryngell gestured with his sword. “Fight!”

  I frowned at his blade; he moved it so fast it was hard to focus. Then, dropping his arm, he lunged forward into attack. I rolled to one side, but he smiled darkly, feinted left then, when I tried to escape, he spun, right foot leading, right arm outstretched.

  He was fast, too fast. The sword entered my belly with a sickening sucking sound and a feeling of heat and then, after only the smallest delay, the most intense pain, such agony that there were no words. I screamed, clutched hands to my stomach. My fingers grew wet, and the blood came out, smelling of iron and death. It pooled on the sheets beneath my legs, and I felt it spread.

  “So much blood,” my mother’s voice.

  I wanted to apologize for the mess but I had no breath left.

  Mother was sobbing now. “You must know what to do?”

  “Madam,” Nurse said, “I do not, lady. I know not.”

  Down on the bed, my body lay, curled like a doll. About my waist was a spreading pool of dark blood. Nurse stacked towels about me. Mother assisted from the other side of the bed. But I could not feel it; I felt relaxed, peaceful. As though I was floating away.

  “Kept us safe, so she did.” Nurse rested a hand gently on my body’s shoulder. “Ain’t many as could have done it, but Lady Dana, ah, she’s strong, she is.”

  “Oh,” said mother drily, “that she is.” I heard the tears in her voice, and they pulled me from the agony for a moment, and for a brief second the pain seemed to lessen. “She’s the strongest woman I know.”

  I opened my eyes in amazement, and she grabbed my hand, squeezed it tightly. “Dana, stay with us. Stay, you hear me?”

  “Ain’t many as strong as Lady Dana. Nursed them all, so I have; I know. Saw what she did with just a portion of the necklace. Imagine what she could do with the whole. We need her power more than ever.”

  But I was drifting, drifting away. The ceiling above me seemed to open like a door. I floated toward it. I glanced back; there Nurse stood beside my bed, a small figure with an angry red face.

  She glared at me fiercely. “Don’t you dare leave! Lady Dana! Don’t you dare!” “I’m sorry,” I whispered. Then, greatly daring: “I love you.”

  She shouted, her voice loud as a trumpet. “Come now, I bid you! We need you.” Despite my fading senses, I winced.

  I felt a faint brush of perfume and a sudden warmth. And suddenly, Rosa was beside me, floating on the ceiling, like this was something she did everyday. The ruby about her neck flared. “What are you doing here? Get back into your body, where you belong.”

  “But it hurts!”

  “Hurts?” She seemed amused. “Of course it hurts. Pain is part of life.” She pulled at me, her hands slipping through me, as I fled from her into the gold. It closed about me, pulled me under, pulled me through.

  There was only silence.

  Is this what deat
h is like?

  Time shifts. It recedes, rewinds. I see a fire burning. The flames shrink smaller, smaller, until they disappear. Finally, only the first spark can be seen, and then even the spark itself disappears. The world is black and empty.

  I stand beside the pool in the cavern within the castle mount. Rosa is beside me, her hand holding mine. Her grasp is comforting. Improbably, a fire burns on the water’s surface. The orange-gold of the flames are mirrored in the dark water.

  “We need your help.” Rosa addresses the fire as though it is alive. “Can you help us? Will you help us?”

  The flames dip, once, twice, and disappear. In their place stands a figure. Man? Woman? Strangely, this seems irrelevant. The smoke is so thick it makes me cough.

  “We hear you.” The voice is soft and singing. The echoes spread and spread.

  “She is dying.” Rosa sounds angry.

  “Of course. She is mortal.”

  “We need her.”

  “Everything passes,” the sweet voice says.

  Rosa takes a deep breath. “If she dies now, the babe within her also dies.”

  For a moment there is emotion on that golden face. “The child will die? It cannot die yet. It is not so ordained.”

  Awkwardly, she tries to prop me up. “It is too young to live without its mother.”

  “Then you must save it. Save her.”

  The creature tips one head to the side in an oddly human gesture, and again there is that strong, almost cloying scent. Then, abruptly, he/she disappears. I stagger, and although Rosa holds me tight, I fall to the side.

  “Dana,” she whispers. “Hold on.”

  But it is hard to stay. The pain has subsided, and for that I am grateful, but I am tired and I have lost much blood, and it is hard to stand when I am this weary. So, despite her arm, I slip toward the rock floor of the cavern and huddle there, like a wounded bird.

  Lines of fire

  Stab my skin.

  A heart falls silent,

  A song begins.

  I think I see a cloaked figure in the shadows.

  “N’Tombe?” I breathe.

  “Dana? What is it?” Rosa asks.

  But the cave is empty. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right.” She presses my hand.

  “I wish …” It hurts to breathe; it hurts to move. The cavern is as dark as a tomb. “I wish …”

  I wish I could see Will again. I wish I could tell him …

  She bends closer, puts her ear near to my mouth, so I can whisper into her ear. But I have no breath left.

  A voice calls “Enough!”

  I am so tired. I close my eyes. Thought disappears.

  Looking down, I see a shadowed land. A black city spreads across a plain, many buildings are damaged and broken; dust rises into the air. At the center of the city is a hill, topped by a palace with many walls. Spreading my wings wide, I drift on currents of air, winding downward, down, down, ever closer to those ramparts. Below the city seems to grow wider, the palace larger: grander, more imposing.

  I see troops drilling, bondsmen building. Slaves hewing stone. All this passes in an instant, time flicking by. Buildings rise from the rubble, fortifications are rebuilt. Armies grow and spread throughout the land, and the palace grows richer, more ornate. A man walks to and fro upon the ramparts. Despite his beard, his rich garments, I recognize him. How could I not? He holds my heart. I fly toward him.

  Will smiles. “I knew you’d come. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Come home,” I whisper. “Come home to me.” Inside my belly I feel a faint nudge; like the wings of a butterfly or a small fist knocking a reminder. “Come home to us.”

  And I wake, and it is morning.

  Part Three

  The Beginning

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Thoughts And Actions

  TeSin was Emperor, and now Will was a Noyan. Surely, there would be better fighters about than him. But TeSin had been adamant, and inexplicably, all the other officers agreed. Seemed his antics on the scaffold had only grown with the retelling. Still, it seemed amazing that he, the son of a baker, now stood at the side of the Emperor.

  We go up in the world, he thought, yet I have not changed at all.

  As emperor’s aide-de-camp, Will was entitled to a suite in the Imperial Palace. But somewhere in the rebuild, the soldiers had unearthed a wooden caravan. The sort a tinker might use. Will, finding it abandoned and empty beside the tourney square, had refitted it. TeSin, laughing, called him a peasant.

  “Not a peasant,” Will said, “a tradesman.”

  The caravan’s wheels were cracked and broken, but that bothered Will not at all. He had it put up on blocks and lodged next to the main practice arena. When his mood became bleak he would simply roll from his bed and begin sparring practice on the wooden dummy. Sometimes, after such a session, he’d turn about, wiping the sweat from his eyes, and find a silent audience of soldiers. Was this awe for him? It didn’t seem right; compared to N’Tombe, or Dana, he had no ability at all.

  * * *

  And so Will lived in his small caravan, and loved the stale smell of tobacco and the whisper of the wind through the cracks in the wooden walls. Better by far than the Imperial Palace, with its rabbit warren of passages and myriad servants, all bowing if he so much as glanced in their direction.

  Over summer he was busy from morn to night, working with the troops or watching over the countless tiny details of the rebuild. Seemed he was always locked in disputes: arguing with owners who refused to restore their damaged property, or disputing with squatters over rights. His small caravan became his refuge.

  TeSin ordered that Mai-Long was to be housed in the Imperial Palace as slowly she began to recover from her injuries. By the time summer arrived, the girl was able to walk about the palace. Will visited her when he could spare the time, although his visits were more from guilt than charity. TeSin, he found out later, saw her daily.

  When first he caught them together, in late spring, the girl was still largely bed-bound, and the older man sat in a chair beside her bed, reading. Come early summer, the Emperor and the jailor’s daughter walked together in the pleasure garden, the girl leaning hard on the Emperor’s arm, speaking gently with him.

  Sometimes Will wondered at TeSin’s interest in the girl. There was more than twenty years between the two; surely they were unlikely to form an attachment. But then, remembering Jed and Ma, he thought, what did he know? Age may be less of a barrier than it appeared.

  By late summer, the girl was fully recovered, moving fluidly. TeSin arranged for a swordsmaster to spar with her. Will watched from the sidelines. The girl had real talent, but she was cruel. She seemed to enjoy inflicting pain.

  After she outgrew the master’s tuition, TeSin looked to Will to teach her, but he excused himself, saying he had no time. Which was true, but that wasn’t the reason he didn’t want to teach the girl. No. Something in her eyes turned him cold. You don’t give an enemy a weapon and teach him how to use it. He nearly said as much to TeSin, but wisdom swallowed the words and he was silent.

  By late summer, TeSin, seeing how fast Mai-Long progressed, made her superintendent of recruits. She took the position seriously. Too seriously, Will sometimes thought.

  Slowly, the seasons changed; the wind began to blow hard and cold from the north. The rebuild progressed and as the planners and scribes gathered to work, Will’s input became less and less needful. Buildings grew apace, and TeSin ordered a festival, in celebration of the renewal of the Black Stronghold.

  * * *

  Will strode onto the tournament square. Mai-Long bowed low and the recruits in formation behind her banged weapons on shields in a loud noise of respect.

  “Lord,” said Mai-Long, “we are ready.”

  Will eyed the young soldiers. Their eyes slid from his, a gesture of respect; they were not worthy enough to meet his gaze. It had taken him some time to become used to this custom. At f
irst he had thought it rudeness, arrogance.

  “Lord?”

  He nodded curtly. “You may begin.”

  Mai-Long nodded at the first two competitors. Young men, a few years younger than he, both proficient from the way they held their weapons. The first, a tall youth with closely shaved scalp, carried two curved knives. The other, shorter, his black hair tied into a ponytail, held a knife and a shield.

  “Begin,” Will said.

  The shield wielder flung his weapon at the other’s head. The knife carrier ducked, and thrust a blade upward. His opponent slipped sideways like a dancer. The shield carrier paused, stepped close –

  Dangerous play, this. Mai-Long trained the troops aggressively. Will wondered how many she lost. Perhaps he should say something to TeSin. But the Noyan, now Emperor, seemed mighty taken with Mai-Long. Will doubted he’d be in the right might for any negative comments, no matter how constructively he framed them.

  – Wait! The shorter shield-carrier was limping. His opponent had gotten close enough to inflict a wound. Good knife play. There was little enough skin to attack; all recruits wore thick vests, studded with metal. The only gaps were the face and the legs.

  “Well done,” Will said appreciatively.

  The fighter’s eyes widened at the compliment, but he never took his eyes from his opponent, so when the other ventured close, Will wasn’t surprised when the knife fighter feinted left, right, left, then shot up, almost in one unbroken movement, flying under the other man’s outthrust shield, and pressed the knife against his opponent’s windpipe. And paused. All eyes turned to Will.

  He wondered, What if I do nothing? Then the taller man would have no choice but to slice the blade through his friend’s throat.

  In an earlier time, Will suspected that was exactly what might have happened, for the other had been clumsy. Another officer might decide to reward such clumsiness with death. Will might not be so cruel, but still, he was annoyed. No soldier could afford to make such gross errors.